Washing machine leaving brown marks on clothes!

Please help me solve this issue. We have a 6-ish year old front-loading Kenmore washing machine. I wash my clothes separate from my family's (just because). About 3 or 4 washes ago, I noticed brown spots on an undershirt. It doesn't look like grease to me. More like.....feces smeared all over it (that color brown). It was only on one shirt out of the whole load. The next wash, two more undershirts. Last load, a mint green button-down shirt. Now this morning, almost every piece of clothing has the stains - about 6 or 7 white shirts and two button-downs (blue checker and green checker).

As far as I know, my family's clothes aren't having this issue. The machine is rust-free on the inside. I Googled and it looks like people that have similar issues are having grease stains. Their pictures look nothing like my color of stains. I just put my white back in the wash with bleach, so I'll see if that helps. For the button-downs, I'm going to try stain stick, but I don't have much hope. They're new shirts, too

Does anyone have ANY idea what could be going on? I'm baffled. And mad.

do you have city or well water?

Quote from Count_Chocula : do you have city or well water?

City.

To add to the mystery: just looked at a fresh clean load of laundry my mom washed. Perfectly clean! They do use different detergent than me, but I've been using the same stuff for ever...

same stuff with different batch? Maybe it's a bad batch?

Is the detergent the only thing that's different between your family load and yours? How about the wash cycle, water temperature, or the dryer cycle? Often I found the color change on my clothes was due to the high temp. cycle of the dryer I used.

This thread may be of help http://slickdeals.net/f/817886-On...SD-members

My guess would be that it's rust. Since its a front loader, have you checked the seal around the door? I know those can degrade a lot, and trap water in them. My parents have a front loader as well and they recently had to replace it. The repair man suggested they go back to powdered detergent b/c it doesn't leave the residue liquids can.

Quote from teetee1 : same stuff with different batch? Maybe it's a bad batch? Is the detergent the only thing that's different between your family load and yours? How about the wash cycle, water temperature, or the dryer cycle? Often I found the color change on my clothes was due to the high temp. cycle of the dryer I used.

I believe the detergent (and maybe softener) is the only variable. I don't know why more and more clothes have been stained over the past few washes. From this last batch, I have one shirt that's perfectly clean. Mind blowing...

All the loads (theirs and mine) are done in cold water, same settings, etc. Before today, I thought it could possibly be the dryer. But the clothes were dirty coming out of the washer this morning.

Quote from LiquidRetro : This thread may be of help http://slickdeals.net/f/817886-On...SD-members My guess would be that it's rust. Since its a front loader, have you checked the seal around the door? I know those can degrade a lot, and trap water in them. My parents have a front loader as well and they recently had to replace it. The repair man suggested they go back to powdered detergent b/c it doesn't leave the residue liquids can.

But only affecting certain loads?

Quote from akkkmed : But only affecting certain loads?

It's a guess based on age, there are parts of the drum you can't see. Many of the newer machines are using plastic drums to avoid this problem.

Other interesting things http://www.fixya.com/support/t386...nt_loading
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf84406716.tip.html

How about phoning the detergent companies?

Quote from akkkmed : City. To add to the mystery: just looked at a fresh clean load of laundry my mom washed. Perfectly clean! They do use different detergent than me, but I've been using the same stuff for ever...

As pathetic as it sounds, ask your mother. She obviously is doing something different in her process that you are not. Or there is something wrong with your detergent/clothes.

Front loaders don't rinse out all that well. You could try running it through an empty cleaning cycle before you put your stuff in to see if it is just that first load that is funky.